


Vernal Dance

by threerings



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ace Spectrum Caleb Widogast, First Kiss, Mollymauk Lives Fest, Nonbinary Mollymauk Tealeaf, Other, Prompt: dancing, Sappy Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 20:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threerings/pseuds/threerings
Summary: At a village festival, Molly and Caleb dance around one another.





	Vernal Dance

Another town, another festival. This one not a harvest celebration, but a welcoming of spring, an anticipation of summer and the new growing season. The town was decorated in strips of bright fabric, early wildflowers gathered into bundles and tied to doors, or worn in the townswomen’s hair. 

The Mighty Nein threw themselves into the festivities with their usual enthusiasm for any excuse to celebrate. At least most of them did. While Fjord, Yasha, and Nott enjoyed the local beverages in the tavern and Jester, Molly, Beau, and surprisingly Caduceus went shopping for new clothing, Caleb was in his room copying spells, having finally found more parchment to purchase. 

After several hours, a delegation of his friends appeared at the door to drag him to the festivities. Nott and Jester each took him by a hand and pulled him down the stairs. He noticed Jester was wearing a new outfit, a simple dress such as the women of the town wore, light and flowing, with shoulders bared to the warming weather. 

“Do you like my new dress, Cay-leb?” she asked, twirling for him once they were in the street heading to the main square. He smiled indulgently and complimented her. “I thought I would fit in better with something simple like this.” 

“Did Beau get one too?” he asked with a quirk of his lips. Honestly, he had a hard time imagining the monk in anything but her usual robes. 

“No,” replied Jester with a pout. “I couldn’t convince her. But she bought a new shawl-type thing to wear instead of her cloak.” 

Caleb opened his mouth to continue the teasing conversation but suddenly whatever he had been about to say left his mind entirely. In front of him was a towering maypole, wound with bright ribbons held by a wide variety of people dancing in the traditional weaving pattern at its base. His eyes fixed on one figure in particular, the familiar lavender shape of Mollymauk. But it was Molly as he’d never seen him before. He was wearing a dress identical to Jesters, but where Jester’s was pale green, his was a vibrant scarlet. And instead of a laced bodice, he wore a man’s waistcoat in deep blue over top of the dress. 

The skirt of the dress spun and lifted as he danced, revealing his legs bare of trousers and high boots, clad only in sandals. And the off-the shoulder sleeves of the dress exposed the skin of his shoulders and upper back, including his bright tattoos. He was dancing and laughing with the inhabitants of the town as if he had been one of them from birth. He was incandescent. As he neared the side of the pole where Caleb stood, he noticed that he still wore his wide belt with his swords across his narrow hips. Somehow all of this: the swords, the frilly, thin dress, the man’s waistcoat...all of it combined to create a whole that shook Caleb to his core with how attractive he found it. He felt a strange urge in him to move forward, to join in the dance, to brush against Mollymauk’s body as he danced…

He shook himself and looked away. Straight into Jester’s face. She smiled knowingly at him and said, “Doesn’t Molly look wonderful?”

“Uh, certainly, _ja,_ ” he muttered, looking around for any distraction. He saw a cart selling drinks. “Nott, do you want some wine?”

“Well, I’ve got my flask, of course,” said Nott with a frown. 

“Well I want a drink,” he said, interrupting her. “Come along.” Nott didn’t complain as he took her by the hand and led her away. 

The afternoon progressed and Caleb had several cups of wine as his friends came and went in and out of his line of sight. This festival was heavy on music, performance, and dancing, so for the most part he simply watched from the edges of the crowd. Molly was in his element, however, dancing one moment and reading cards for an eager audience the next. (And slipping any coins back into their pockets when they weren’t looking if they insisted on paying.) 

Beau got into something of a competitive acrobatics performance with a halfling tumbler, which Fjord had to eventually draw to a close before Beau could turn it into a boxing match. Caleb spotted Caduceus in deep conversation with several of the farmer’s wives over a bundle of flowers and herbs. 

As the sun dropped lower in the sky, the mood of the music and dancing grew more romantic and people began to move in pairs more than groups and circles. Caleb’s stomach roiled as he watched Mollymauk dance with a large man in a dashing hat. He didn’t like how close they were together, how the man’s arm encircled Molly’s waist in a possessive manner. When the dance ended, he half expected Molly to slip away with the man, but instead he broke off with a smile and bow and headed for the wine cart. 

Caleb forced himself to look away, perusing a stall of cheap jewelry as if he were actually interested in their wares. Thus he didn’t notice Mollymauk’s approach until the tiefling was right next to him.

“Oh, this is lovely!” he said, fingering a coppery bauble. It glittered with cut glass beads. “What do you think, Caleb?” he asked, holding the charm up to his horn. Caleb’s eyes flicked from the shiny necklace to Molly’s face and back. He shrugged. 

“Do you like it?” he asked. 

“I think so.” Molly peered at the piece. “I need something for the left side to even them out, don’t you think?” 

“If you say so.” Molly frowned a little at him. 

“You think it’s too much?”

“ _Nein._ Not at all. If you like it, you should have it,” he said seriously. Then he reached for the bit of copper and glass and took it from Molly’s hand. The tiefling looked surprised when Caleb waved to the stall owner and asked the price and then insisted on paying it. 

“Caleb, you don’t have to...” 

Caleb shrugged. “It’s nothing.” He handed it to Mollymauk carefully. “There.” Molly smiled, such a sweet and pure smile that something in Caleb’s chest clenched. 

Molly held it back out to him. “Will you help me with it? Just through that lowest hole there.” He gestured to one of the piercings in his horn, turning his back to Caleb to give him access. Caleb took the chain and very carefully approached Molly, trying to thread it through his horn without touching him more than necessary. To his annoyance, his hands were trembling slightly and he fumbled the clasp on the first try. But finally he had the sparkly bauble in place and he stepped back. Molly shook his head side to side and then smiled back at him.

“How does it look?” he asked. 

“Very nice,” he answered truthfully. “It matches your dress a bit.” 

Molly twirled his hips a little. “Do you like it? Jester insisted.”

Caleb felt himself smiling genuinely. “I do...it looks very...lovely.” He found himself a little surprised when Mollymauk ducked his head at the compliment, as if embarrassed. He usually expected Molly to accept all praise with brash agreement. 

After a moment of looking back towards the center of the square, Molly turned back to him. “Would you dance with me, Caleb?” he asked. 

“I...” Caleb began, intended to give his standard refusal, but the words died on his lips in the face of Molly’s hopeful expression. There was something fragile about the way he looked in this moment, as if Caleb’s answer truly mattered to him. Caleb cleared his throat. “I don’t like...to be in that kind of crowd,” he said instead. 

Molly’s eyes sparkled. “We don’t have to dance over there...what if I found somewhere...more private?” A moment of silence passed, in which Caleb knew he should say no, but he didn’t. Molly grinned and caught his hand, pulling him away from the square, down a side street. 

“Where are we going?” he asked, a little alarmed. He wasn’t sure he was ready for...some kinds of privacy with Mollymauk. Despite how beautiful he looked in a dress. 

“Just a little ways away,” Molly shot over his shoulder, continuing to pull Caleb along. He lead him down the street to another small street, an alleyway really, running behind some buildings. The height of the buildings kept the last of the day’s sunlight from falling here, meaning the area was dim and shadowy. “Here,” Molly said with satisfaction. “We can still hear the music, but no one else is watching. 

Caleb felt breathless as Molly pulled him closer, catching his other hand as well and guiding his arms around the tiefling’s slim waist. He placed a hand flat on his lower back, feeling the warmth of his body through the thin fabric of his dress. Molly reached up to wrap his arms partway around Caleb’s back, pulling them into a loose embrace and beginning to sway to the music. 

Caleb’s heart pounded, seeming to echo throughout his head and neck. He felt entirely out of his depth, so much seeming to pass between himself and Mollymauk that he barely understood. He felt as if they were speaking a language he had known decades ago, in his youth, but which he had forgotten in the meanwhile. 

“You’re not a bad dancer,” said Molly with a crooked smile. “No reason to be shy about it.” 

“I just don’t like...crowds.” He focused his gaze on Molly’s shoulder, counting the feathers of his peacock tattoo, trying to ignore the sensation of being closely observed by his dance partner.

“Did someone teach you to dance?” asked Molly after another few moments of silence. _Twenty-two,_ he counted.

“I...yes, when I was young. I was taught at school.” 

“Ah. See, I have no idea if anyone ever taught me. I just knew how. How to do several different dances, actually. I guess it’s one of those things the body remembers.” Caleb flicked his eyes at Mollymauk’s face, hearing something in those last words. Molly’s red eyes glittered at him. “Not the only thing I remembered how to do,” he said slyly, the tip of his tongue just peeking out between his teeth. Caleb felt himself flush and he looked away again. Thankfully Molly gave him a few moments of silence to compose himself.

“Caleb?” said Molly after a bit, swaying a little so the skirt of his dress moved around him. “Do you have a preference...for men or women?”

Caleb felt his face heat again as he looked down. His eyes couldn’t help tracing the shape of Molly’s hips beneath the clinging fabric. “I...” he started, then cleared his throat. “I don’t have much experience either way,” he admitted. Molly tilted his head to the side curiously, drawing his gaze upwards “To be honest, I don’t usually have much interest in anyone in that way.” He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment cross Molly’s face, and his heart skipped a beat.

“But...there are exceptions,” he hurried to add. 

“Exceptions?” Molly looked at him, half-shy and half-sly. Caleb nodded, his lips curving up.

“Yes,” he said. “Very rarely, there’s someone special, who catches my attention.” His heart pounded in his chest and part of him was screaming, trying to get him to stop, to leave. But at this moment he felt reckless, with Molly so close, so beautiful, the most attractive person he felt he’d ever known. 

Molly was still watching him, as if waiting for something specific. His red eyes seemed to glitter in the low light and his lips were parted slightly. Caleb wanted to kiss him. “Like you,” he said on a breath, barely more than a whisper. He hadn’t even known he was going to speak, it was as if the words simply slipped from him. 

Molly’s face broke into a smile, not a smirking grin like it did when he was teasing, but a genuine smile of joy. “Really?” he asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “Of course, you. Mollymauk...” He broke off, unable to find the words for what his heart so longed to express. He saw the tiefling’s face go soft, and he lifted a hand to Caleb’s cheek, talons tracing softly down his face. 

“Caleb,” he said, “Do you want...” He broke off, as if he ran out of breath. He inhaled several times before he spoke again. “Can I kiss you?” he asked at last, and suddenly Caleb felt short of breath. 

He was beyond reason, beyond the point where good sense would have told him to turn back. He felt he was in a bubble of unreality, trapped in a plane where anything was possible, if only for now. So he nodded, shakily, already reaching for Molly as he bent his head to bring his lips to Caleb’s. 

At first it was just a brush of soft lips on his own rougher, dryer ones. Their breath met in the space between them, both panting shallowly. And then his hand was on the back of Molly’s head, fingers weaving into his hair as he pulled him forward, pressing them together hungrily. 

Weeks, months, maybe even _years_ of desire seemed to well up in him, until he was shaking with it, trembling as Mollymauk’s arms snaked around him and held him. He was lightheaded, afraid he might pass out at any moment, but that didn’t stop him from exploring Molly’s mouth with his tongue, digging the fingers of his left hand into his hip, pressing his body forward to feel Molly against him. Eventually he swayed with dizziness, though, and had to step back, gulping at the evening air to clear his head. 

“Gods, I’ve wanted to kiss you for a really long time,” gasped Molly. 

“Really?” he asked, having a hard time believing it.

“Yes.” Caleb stared into Molly’s eyes and saw something...he suddenly felt overwhelmed, felt fear rise in him at what was coming next. Molly apparently saw this in his face and raised a hand to cup his cheek. “It’s alright, darling,” he said. “This doesn’t have to be anything...but what we _want_ it to be.” 

Caleb took several shaky breaths, feeling Molly’s warm hand against his face, and felt the panic recede. He didn’t know why, but that was a comforting thought. 

“For right now,” Molly continued, “I want you to dance with me.” And he pulled Caleb back into an embrace, this time closer than before. Caleb let himself relax into it, into the soothing movement that had very little to do with the music happening several streets away. And they danced, together, as the last light faded and night fell peacefully over the town.

**Author's Note:**

> This is SO super fluffy for me, without even any smut. But they deserve it, in the spirit of Mollymauk Lives Fest. Check out all the great submissions to the fest over on [ Tumblr.](http://mollymauklivesfest.tumblr.com) (I'm the mod, case you can't tell.)
> 
> In my head, Caleb is demisexual here, but you can read him anywhere on the Ace spectrum, really. And this was also me playing with Molly discussing his enby-ness, but he doesn't quite get there because KISSING.


End file.
